Frederick Harold Frith Banbury
MBE Mbe may refer to:
* Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo
* Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria
* Mbe language, a language of Nigeria
* Mbe' language, language of Cameroon
* ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language
Molal ...
(4 May 1912 – 14 May 2008) was a British theatre actor and director.
Banbury was born in
Plymouth,
Devon
Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...
, on 4 May 1912, the son of
Rear Admiral Frederick Arthur Frith Banbury and his wife Winifred (née Fink).
While attending
Stowe School, Banbury rejected his father's naval background by refusing to join the
Officer Training Corps
The Officers' Training Corps (OTC), more fully called the University Officers' Training Corps (UOTC), are military leadership training units operated by the British Army. Their focus is to develop the leadership abilities of their members whilst ...
, later being registered as a
conscientious objector, enabling him to continue acting throughout the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
.
He went on to attend
Hertford College, Oxford
Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main gate to the Bodleian Library. The col ...
,
though he left after one year without obtaining an academic degree. He trained for the stage at the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA; ) is a drama school in London, England, that provides vocational conservatoire training for theatre, film, television, and radio. It is based in the Bloomsbury area of Central London, close to the Senat ...
alongside
Joan Littlewood
Joan Maud Littlewood (6 October 1914 – 20 September 2002) was an English theatre director who trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and is best known for her work in developing the Theatre Workshop. She has been called "The Mother of M ...
,
Rachel Kempson
Rachel, Lady Redgrave (28 May 1910 – 24 May 2003), known primarily by her birth name Rachel Kempson, was an English actress. She married Sir Michael Redgrave, and was the matriarch of the famous acting dynasty.
Career
Kempson trained at RADA ...
,
Robert Morley
Robert Adolph Wilton Morley, CBE (26 May 1908 – 3 June 1992) was an English actor who enjoyed a lengthy career in both Britain and the United States. He was frequently cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment, of ...
, and
Peter Bull
Peter Cecil Bull, (21 March 1912 – 20 May 1984) was a British character actor who appeared in supporting roles in such films as '' The African Queen'', ''Tom Jones'', and ''Dr. Strangelove''.
Biography
He was the fourth and youngest son o ...
.
Banbury died on 14 May 2008, at the age of 96.
Theatrical career
Banbury made his first stage appearance on 15 June 1933, playing a walk-on part in ''
If I Were You'' at the
Shaftesbury Theatre
The Shaftesbury Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Shaftesbury Avenue, in the London Borough of Camden. Opened in 1911 as the New Prince's Theatre, it was the last theatre to be built in Shaftesbury Avenue.
History
The theatre was ...
. He continued to act through the 1930s and 40s, appearing at such venues as the
Ambassadors Theatre, the
Little Theatre, the
Gate Theatre
The Gate Theatre is a theatre on Cavendish Row in Dublin, Ireland. It was founded in 1928.
History Beginnings
The Gate Theatre was founded in 1928 by Hilton Edwards and Micheál MacLiammóir with Daisy Bannard Cogley and Gearóid Ó Lochlai ...
, the
Apollo Theatre
The Apollo Theatre is a Grade II listed West End theatre, on Shaftesbury Avenue in the City of Westminster, in central London. , and the
Q Theatre
The Q Theatre was a British theatre located near Kew Bridge in Brentford, west London, which operated between 1924 and 1958. It was built on the site of the former Kew Bridge Studios.
The theatre, seating 490 in 25 rows with a central aisle, w ...
.
After World War II, Banbury was invited back to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to direct. He made his professional directing breakthrough by directing ''
Dark Summer
''Dark Summer'' is a 1992 novel from Australian author Jon Cleary. It was the ninth book featuring Sydney homicide detective Scobie Malone, and begins with the discovery of a corpse in Scobie's swimming pool. The dead man was an informer involved ...
'', a play written by fellow pacifist
Wynyard Browne
Wynyard Barry Browne (6 October 1911 – 19 February 1964) was an English dramatist, playwright and screenwriter
Biography
He was born in London in 1911, and educated at Marlborough and Christ's College, Cambridge. His plays include '' T ...
. Other early successes for Banbury included ''
The Holly and the Ivy
"The Holly and the Ivy" is a traditional British folk Christmas carol, listed as number 514 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The song can be traced only as far as the early nineteenth century, but the lyrics reflect an association between holly a ...
'', ''
Waters of the Moon'', and ''
The Deep Blue Sea''.
The latter was one of three plays which Banbury directed on
Broadway
Broadway may refer to:
Theatre
* Broadway Theatre (disambiguation)
* Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
** Broadway (Manhattan), the street
**Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...
, with the other two being ''
Flowering Cherry
A cherry blossom, also known as Japanese cherry or sakura, is a flower of many trees of genus ''Prunus'' or ''Prunus'' subg. ''Cerasus''. They are common species in East Asia, including China, Korea and especially in Japan. They generally ...
'' and ''
The Right Honourable Gentleman''.
Other locations at which Banbury directed plays include the
Cambridge Theatre
The Cambridge Theatre is a West End theatre, on a corner site in Earlham Street facing Seven Dials, in the London Borough of Camden, built in 1929–30 for Bertie Meyer on an "irregular triangular site".
Design and construction
It was des ...
in 1971, (
Captain Brassbound's Conversion
''Captain Brassbound's Conversion'' (1900) is a play by G. Bernard Shaw. It was published in Shaw's 1901 collection ''Three Plays for Puritans'' (together with '' Caesar and Cleopatra'' and '' The Devil's Disciple''). The first American producti ...
),
Old Vic
Old or OLD may refer to:
Places
*Old, Baranya, Hungary
*Old, Northamptonshire, England
* Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD)
*OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Ma ...
theatre, the
Edinburgh Festival
__NOTOC__
This is a list of arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The city has become known for its festivals since the establishment in 1947 of the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Fe ...
, the
Chichester Festival Theatre
Chichester Festival Theatre is a theatre and Grade II* listed building situated in Oaklands Park in the city of Chichester, West Sussex, England. Designed by Philip Powell and Hidalgo Moya, it was opened by its founder Leslie Evershed-Mart ...
,
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...
,
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...
, South Africa, Kenya, and Australia.
Archive
The papers of Frith Banbury were purchased by the
Harry Ransom Center
The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...
at the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...
in the 1990s as part of their extensive holdings of contemporary British theatre. The collection opened to the public in 1996. The archive consists of over sixty boxes of scripts, correspondence, posters, programs, photographs, publicity clippings and scrapbooks, reviews, and financial records pertaining to his career from 1926-1995. The Ransom Center also holds a collection of material relating to the 1952 American production of
Terence Rattigan
Sir Terence Mervyn Rattigan (10 June 191130 November 1977) was a British dramatist and screenwriter. He was one of England's most popular mid-20th-century dramatists. His plays are typically set in an upper-middle-class background.Geoffrey Wan ...
's ''
The Deep Blue Sea'', which was directed by Banbury.
The Ransom Center
norman.hrc.utexas.edu. Accessed 19 November 2022.
Filmography
Film
References
External links
Frith Banbury Papers
at the Harry Ransom Center
The Harry Ransom Center (until 1983 the Humanities Research Center) is an archive, library and museum at the University of Texas at Austin, specializing in the collection of literary and cultural artifacts from the Americas and Europe for the pur ...
, University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Banbury, Frith
1912 births
2008 deaths
Alumni of Hertford College, Oxford
Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
British conscientious objectors
English male stage actors
English theatre directors
Male actors from Plymouth, Devon
Members of the Order of the British Empire
People educated at Stowe School